Until now, there has been known a scanning endoscope in which a leading edge of an optical fiber arranged at a leading edge of an insertion portion is rotated along a spiral locus to spirally scan illumination light emitted from the leading edge of the optical fiber on an object, the light returning from each scan position is received by a plurality of light receiving portions circumferentially spaced apart at the leading edge of the insertion portion, and light intensity associated with the scan position is stored, to thereby generate a two-dimensional image (refer to PTL 1, for example).